Find out who the most successful female entrepreneurs in India are, today!
There are so many successful women entrepreneurs in India that we could discuss here. Hundreds in fact. However, the ones you will find below are undoubtedly the cream of the crop.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw – Founder of Biocon Ltd
India’s richest self-made woman, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw started her biopharmaceutical firm Biocon in the ’70s. Biocon’s primary concern is biosimilars, that is medical drugs that are very close to an approved medicine. Something they have taken to the US market and which they have received approval from the FDA.
Of course, as you would expect from such a successful biopharmaceutical firm, Mazumdar Shaw has invested heavily in research and development and continues to grow her corporate empire.
Vandana Luthra – Founder of VLCC
Another hugely successful female Indian entrepreneur is Vandana Luthra. In fact, Luthra’s success is not limited to just the corporate world but extends into philanthropy as well. In particular, her work offering free education for physically challenged and underprivileged with non-profit organisation Khushii is well known.
At the current time, Vandana Luthra is the chairperson of the beauty & Wellness sector skill council (B&WSSC). She also founded her own beauty based business VLCC in 1989. VLCC began as a beauty and weightloss business. However, Luthra has used her business acumen to expand into other areas over the years, including grooming, hair removal and skin care services.
Luthra is also the recipient of several awards including Padma Shree.
Priya Paul – Park Hotel Chair
Another Padma Shree award winner that is worthy of a space in this countdown of India’s most successful woman is Priya Paul. Paul is chairperson of the Park Hotel Chain and is influential and well regarded in both the business and hospitality sectors.
Studying in the US, Priya Paul then worked with her father as a marketing manager at the beginning of her career. An experience that has seemed to stand her in excellent stead for her current success.
Ritu Kumar – Fashion Is Her Passion
Whether you know fashion or not, you have likely heard of our next successful female Indian entrepreneur – Ritu Kumar. Both a shrewd businesswoman and a designer, Kumar recently broke into the international fashion scene and has premises in fashion hubs New York and France.
Suchi Mukherjee – Founder of Limeroad.com
Few women in India have not shopped on or at least heard of the widely popular site Limeraod.com. A place where a scrapbook aesthetic combines with an online shopping experience and makes it very tempting to refresh your wardrobe.
Of course, what you may not know is that the brains behind Limeroad.com is the award-winning founder and CEO Suchi Mukherjee. In fact, Suchi Mukherjee has a long list of successes in both the academic and commercial worlds. Beginning when she gained a scholarship to study Economics at Cambridge University, all the way through her career where she held elite positions as big-hitting international companies. Some of which include Lehman Brothers, Virgin Media, and eBay.
Suchi Mukherjee’s success does not end there, however, because before she founded Limeroad.com, she was also involved in setting up the well-known brands Gumtree and Skype! Of course, all this experience in high powered positions meant Suchi knew precisely how to create a business that would thrive in the current Indian marketplace.
Indra Nooyi – Amazon Board Member
I’d say that being a board member of Amazon probably qualifies you as a successful woman, which is why we have included the legendary Indra Nooyi, here. In fact, Forbes rates her as the world’s 11th most powerful woman, which is no mean feat!
Apart from her appointment to the board at Amazon in 2019, Nooyi has held many other high powered positions. These include working as a product manager at Johnson & Johnson, as a strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group, and has been the CEO of PepsiCo.
Of course, when you learn, she began her career with a master’s degree from Yale School of Management, her success makes perfect sense.
Aditi Gupta – Menstrupedia
No list of top entrepreneurs in India would be complete without the iconic Aditi Gupta. Aditi, along with her now-husband Tuhin Patel founded the hugely important education site Menstrupedia. This is a website that spreads awareness and education about menstruation.
Gupta’s concert for the site springs from both her own experience as a child in Jharkhand and from the detailed research she conducted as a Ford Foundation research Scholar, on the lack of education on this subject throughout India.
The main aim of Menstrupedia and the comic on which it was founded is to make sure that girls and women know what is happening to their own bodies. They also share information about improving their quality of life during menstruation.
Menstrapida comics continue to be used in schools across India and have been translated into Nepali and Spanish. This being an achievement that makes Gupta one of the most successful female entrepreneurs across the whole of India.
Denise Coates
Although not strictly Indian, Denise Coates is a billionaire businesswoman with a net worth of $9.4 billion. She ranked 69th on Forbes’ list of Richest in Tech in 2017 and is 383rd richest person on the planet. She co-founded the online gambling company Bet365 and is the joint chief executive along with her brother John.
Denise Coates is also the majority shareholder in the company with 50.1% shares. She became the highest paid boss in the UK after she paid herself a $363 million salary in 2018. In doing so, she broke her own previous records of $347 million in 2017 and $284 million in 2016.